Is Jesus's "this generation will certainly not pass" valid grounds for scepticism?

acbytesla said:
'I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains on a beautiful fall afternoon. I turned the corner and saw in front of me this frozen waterfall, a couple of hundred feet high. Actually, a waterfall that had three parts to it — also the symbolic three in one. At that moment, I felt my resistance leave me. And it was a great sense of relief. The next morning, in the dewy grass in the shadow of the Cascades, I fell on my knees and accepted this truth — that God is God, that Christ is his son and that I am giving my life to that belief.'
https://www.premierchristianity.com...atheist-to-christian-convert/2339.articlewere complaining about obsession.
www.premierchristianity.com

How a world famous geneticist went from staunch atheist to Christian convert

Read the amazing testimony of Francis S. Collins, M.D, Ph.D
www.premierchristianity.com www.premierchristianity.com
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It looks to me that the essence of his conversion is (from your link):

Forced to examine the evidence concerning the truth or falsity of religion, Collins was eventually led to read C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, where, he says, '...within the first three pages, I realised that my arguments against faith were those of a schoolboy.' He realised that no law of science could adequately explain the existence of morality. When Collins read Lewis’ critique of moral law, he realised that no law of science could adequately explain the existence of morality, but a Creator God fit the explanation perfectly

ETA: Ironic given the subject of this thread (ie that it was C.S. Lewis he read).
 
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acbytesla said:
For someone who says they are an atheist, you sure lean on a lot of Christian apologetics.
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Nothing wrong with following wherever truth leads...even if that might be to Jesus himself.
acbytesla said:
We don't know God being a possibility for anything is reasonable. The saying "anything is possible" simply is not true.
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A creator of this universe is reasonable. So is the universe coming into existence by itself.
acbytesla said:
And who said anything about the Universe creating itself? Christians often make moronic statements such as this. And usually follow it up with a special pleading sequitor that God is eternal. Why can't the Universe be eternal? Or why can't energy and matter be eternal? Which is what I find to be the most likely possibility. But inevitably, I don't know.
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Well it is interesting that a Catholic priest discovered the Big Bang (Lemaitre) - although, of course, Hubble too. Many scientists were rather nonplussed at this since, as you point out, steady state fits the eternal better.
 
steenkh said:
Who are the “Darwinists” you are thinking of? All biologists who are also scientists? In recent years I have only heard the word used in a pejorative sense by Christian literalists.
I am also unsure what you mean by “modern synthesis” but I guess you mean the theory of evolution, or possibly abiogenesis, for which nobody has advanced a fully plausible theory.
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One third of biologists do not accept that modern synthesis is sufficient. Modern synthesis is also know as Neo-Darwinism. It is the current explanation (developed in the 30s/40s) for the mechanics of evolution - ie genetic mutation under natural selection.
 
steenkh said:
There we are again: what does “fulfill” mean? The dictionary definitions don’t help me. Does it mean “invalidate”? How do you fulfill a law? Can I fulfill a law?
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I'm pretty sure that Jesus was describing himself - his life without sin - thus, he averred that he fulfilled the law. The requirement is that we acknowledge this and then we also become children of God.
 
Poem said:
I think it does. As I was suggesting - it depends on what we mean by God. Einstein had time for deism.
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Deism is just non-specific theism.

And again, I've been right where you are at for most of my teen and adult life:

Q: Do you believe in god?
A: No.
Q: Do you disbelieve in god?
A: No. Therefore I am a third option.

But that's not the conclusion. The conclusion is you are an atheist, lacking a belief in a god. Being open to ideas does not put you in the middle somewhere. You believe in a god, or you do not. Not being sure is solidly in the "not" department, as counterintuitive as it feels.

If you want to vascillate about what we mean by god, that's fine. Is god nature? No. Nature is nature. Is god the laws of physics? No. The laws of physics are the laws of physics. We can say a fleshlight is god, but come on... that's playing games, not moving towards clarity.

A god, by any meaningful definition, is a superior, sentient supernatural being (just to include little gods in Greek mythology and all). For our purposes, we are talking about an intelligent designer of the universe.

So: y'all believe in one of them? It's a y/n.
 
I shouldn't say anything but.....I mean the story is that a guy was born the son of the one true omnipotent omniscient god while also being that god to a mother who was virgin. The son of God basically disappears for 30 years thrn comes bad and preaches, raises a dude from the dead, is tortured to death then resurrected but his body is taken straight to heaven, so we don't have any proof and the thing I'm meant to be skeptical of is that they end of the world didn't happen 2000 years ago? Sure, I guess it is something to be skeptical of......

ETA, true enough, deism is just nonspecific theism. Which is about the only kind of theism worth considering. As soon as you start adding specifics it becomes a lot more difficult to swallow. So sure, there's a god we can't quite know or know what it thinks or why it did all this. Makes more sense than, there's a God that has this plan and reason that clearly doesn't make sense but that's just because we are poor ignorant humans who can't possibly understand what he wrote down or had other folks write down. Don't worry about it, its all like metaphor man!
 
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ahhell said:
I shouldn't say anything but.....I mean the story is that a guy was born the son of the one true omnipotent omniscient god while also being that god to a mother who was virgin. The son of God basically disappears for 30 years thrn comes bad and preaches, raises a dude from the dead, is tortured to death then resurrected but his body is taken straight to heaven, so we don't have any proof and the thing I'm meant to be skeptical of is that they end of the world didn't happen 2000 years ago? Sure, I guess it is something to be skeptical of......
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Yes - it is something to be sceptical of...indeed, very sceptical of.
 
Poem said:
Yes - it is something to be sceptical of...indeed, very sceptical of.
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Sure but its like your kid telling you that a giant green monster came in and broke the vase and also his brother was the one that ate the cookies. Sure, I'm suspicious of the cookie thing but meh.
 
ahhell said:
Sure but its like your kid telling you that a giant green monster came in and broke the vase and also his brother was the one that ate the cookies. Sure, I'm suspicious of the cookie thing but meh.
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I understand your point - and I'm not disagreeing in principle. The evidence for Christ and that of the giant green monster still need assessing.
 
Poem said:
I'm pretty sure that Jesus was describing himself - his life without sin - thus, he averred that he fulfilled the law. The requirement is that we acknowledge this and then we also become children of God.
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So what you are saying is that “fulfilling” the Judaic law simply means never to make a transgression to that law. OK, I can accept that. Whoops, does that mean that my acceptance of this fact (because it doesn’t seem unlikely to me) means that I have become a child of God, and will go to Heaven? - That was just a joke question, don’t answer it 😁
 
arthwollipot said:
For me, it was like the Old Testament provided a context for the coming of Christ. It starts with Genesis, goes into Laws, then does a deep dive into the History of the Israelites in the promised land - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles - which to me remains one of the most fun and interesting parts of the Bible to read (Sisera and Jael, anyone? Classic!). This provides a historical background to the time and the culture. In the back half of the OT it goes into the prophecies of the coming Messiah. All this as a lead-in or prelude to the real story, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
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As if that kind of context could ever be considered a positive. Fun and interesting? Who are you, Hannibal Lecter?

tt sets a horrible prelude for kind and loving Jesus and his philosophy. It's like you think a Rom Com like When Harry met Sally should start with a flash back to a wedding from A Game of Thrones.
arthwollipot said:
It's like how the first clause of the Second Amendment provides context for the second clause without being a limitation on it. I hope my clumsy attempt at a distinctively American analogy makes sense.
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The Second Amendment might just be a good analogy since both it and the Old Testament are disasters

arthwollipot said:
And no, obviously the Histories are not really historically accurate. But they paint a picture, without which the story is, in my opinion, incomplete. This is a part of the Bible that I believe could have originated in genuine historical events (aka wars), with later embellishment and elaboration by people with a religious agenda to push. Many legends, after all, have their origins in much simpler and less supernatural history..
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You got that right. But what purpose does an exaggerated genocidal Jewish historical prelude serve the narrative of a loving forgiving God? God goes from being an amalgamation of Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Stalin and Joseph Mengele to Mr Rogers? Surely ye jest.
 
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Poem said:
I am pretty sure many Jewish scholars have not taken the creation story literally cmiiw.

I think the historicity of Jesus and proof of what was said in the NT are generally dealt with separately. Most scholars accept the historicity of Jesus - think of Tacitus's citation in his Annals.
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Suggesting that Tacitus proves the historicity of Jesus is like suggesting that I prove the historicity of William McKinley. Only it's worse than that. Tacitus wites about Jesus 80 years after the alleged crucifiction. And what does he have to go on? Probably not much more than the stories derived from the writings of Paul.
 
acbytesla said:
Suggesting that Tacitus proves the historicity of Jesus is like suggesting that I prove the historicity of William McKinley. Only it's worse than that. Tacitus wites about Jesus 80 years after the alleged crucifiction. And what does he have to go on? Probably not much more than the stories derived from the writings of Paul.
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Silliness. Poem is correct, the consensus amongst historians and scholars of the ancient nearest is that there was a messianic Jewish preacher named Jesus in Judiah about 2000 years ago.
 
ahhell said:
Silliness. Poem is correct, the consensus amongst historians and scholars of the ancient nearest is that there was a messianic Jewish preacher named Jesus in Judiah about 2000 years ago.
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Whether or not there was or wasn't a Jewish preacher named Jesus hardly is demonstrable by the the Annals of Tacitus. What that suggests is that at the time the Annals were being written, the story of Jesus was known. Historians do point to Tacitus because ancient history frequently offers little more than such stories. That doesn't mean Jesus was real. Legend often become history and history often becomes legend.
 
I'd be more surprised if there weren't an apocalyptic preacher running around 2000 years ago. For pete's sake, there was an apocalyptic preacher in Waco, TX, just 35 years ago. Heck, he was even executed by the government for insurrection!

Seems to me that "apocalyptic preacher" is a pretty low bar to get over.
 
Darat said:
There are plenty of long and detailed threads about whether a Jesus as a real person existed or not.

Ricardo

Thread 'Historical Jesus'

You must believe that Jesus existed!
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I'm definitely not trying to steer the thread toward the historicity of Jesus Christ. It's irrelevant to whether Jesus was divine.

And Jesus being divine is what the New Testament and Christian theology is all about. Finally, I don't see how the Old Testament in any way advances the religion. If anything, it detracts. I tend to believe the divinity story of Jesus is Paul's creation. Tying it to the Old Testament Jewish God offered Paul a wider audience for his grift.
 
acbytesla said:
Suggesting that Tacitus proves the historicity of Jesus is like suggesting that I prove the historicity of William McKinley. Only it's worse than that. Tacitus wites about Jesus 80 years after the alleged crucifiction. And what does he have to go on? Probably not much more than the stories derived from the writings of Paul.
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I gave Tacitus as but one source. There are others.

It remains a FACT that most scholars consider that Jesus was a real person.
 
Poem said:
I gave Tacitus as but one source. There are others.

It remains a FACT that most scholars consider that Jesus was a real person.
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I consider there to be a real person behind the Jesus mythology. That don't make him divine. But Tacitus is the closest to being contemporary that is outside the Bible.
 
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